Khajuraho: The Sex Temples & the Irony of India

It’s no surprise that India is a VERY conservative country… About a lot of things.

India is one of the countries that, although culturally seems very open on the subject of sexuality, the minimum samples of effect in public are considered in bad taste. But, you have a bunch of men holding hands and rubbing each other’s legs in public, because they are friends. (WHY?!)

Mera dost nahi, but he serves the purpose of illustration

Since the English colonization, India became a conservative country and never looked back. It is ironic that a culture that gave enormous contributions to the world in relation to the knowledge of the body and sexuality, is currently one of the most conservative and repressive. With one of the highest rape cases in the world, women are abused on a daily basis.

All over India

Wearing Indian clothes, covered, and I still got groped. Khajuraho International Film Festival

It doesn’t matter what you wear, who you are with, how you conduct yourself… you will always get stared at, catcalled, and when the time comes, even groped and pulled by your clothes. There’s nothing you can tell me about how “all men are not like that” because there’s just no justification. NO MEN SHOULD BE LIKE THAT. And men who see that, and not confront other men about it, are equally part of it.

I am lucky nothing else happened to me, but It was close. You can read the story here. And it is just NOT fair. I put up a good fight, I curse, I carry a knife, the question is:

Why should women be subjected to living like this?

It’s time to put a stop to it, and until everyone starts accepting the reality of RAPE CULTURE that has meddled into every aspect of society, it will be impossible to eliminate the injustice that reigns all over the world. In India, a lot needs to change in people’s mindset to get things to work, and to NEVER again wait until something like what happened to Jyoti Singh occurs to actually move off their asses.

Stop telling women the way they should dress, act, talk, walk ane exist. The problem is not women.

Except the problem are mothers: Stop making differences between men and women. Don’t subject your daughter to house chores while your son is scratching his balls on the couch. Treat them as equals, and you will make better adults in the future.

Stop thinking it is normal to catcall: Saying “oh, such big boobs” to a stranger on the street is nothing short of SEXUAL HARRASMENT.

The worst part was… It was not always like this.

To speak of ancestral sexuality in India is to speak of a tradition and way of life. Sexual practices in India have a cultural root based on the cosmovision and identity of this people. Sexuality was an art, a learning that is mastered with care and mastery, based on a broad ancestral knowledge that sought to enhance the pleasure and enjoyment of sexuality.

Sex in India was a pedagogical issue, education was regulated and since women were girls they were taught in the arts of seduction: dance, music, singing, adornment. The feminine role implied to worry about the beauty of the own body and to guarantee the pleasure in the sexual act; immersed in an undeniably patriarchal society, women should have the knowledge and instruction to adorn their own bodies and give pleasure to others.

While women did serve a role in this sexually liberated land, they were not subject to humiliation or brutalization in the hands of whoever walked the streets.

The sexual tradition was linked to a religious vision, Hinduism as a philosophy and a lifestyle that manifests itself in mandates on how to pray, wash, eat, incinerate the dead, dress, do business and behave sexually. Sexuality is in Tantric philosophy a ritual, a sacred exercise of pleasure and the body. It is a way to connect with one’s own enjoyment, with the other and with the divine. “Kamasutra” means “aphorisms of sexuality or sexual pleasure” and is, therefore, a book that shows the teachings of a sacred pleasure and a divine love.

“The greatest pleasure one can experience is only an indication of the possibilities of the soul.” – Kamasutra

The Temples of Khajuraho

The importance of sex in India is demonstrated in the Kamasutra and the sculptures with erotic shapes that adorn the walls of the most important temples in the country. When you visit Khajuraho, considered World Heritage of Humanity, or the Temple of the Sun of Konark, East of India… You know India used to be the opposite of what it is today.

The images are based on the tantric philosophy, in which the forces of the feminine and masculine sex are balanced. Some of them represent voluptuous nymphs in suggestive positions. However, others represent couples or groups in the most incredible and acrobatic sexual positions. Nudity, orgies and others are shown openly as a sign of an ancestral society open to this type of practices, which contrast with today’s India.

India: Today & Tomorrow.

Currently sexuality in India has taboo: sexual expression has changed from the time of the Kamasutra to the present repression. Public displays of affection are not permitted, most marriages are carried out demanding the virginity of the women; then they become an object on which psychological and physical violence is carried out.

Today in India, harassment of women is a common problem among the population, and rapes and sexual attacks amount to thousands each year; misinformation has fostered diseases such as HIV that spread mainly among the homosexual population. Sexual education is nonexistent: No one talks, no one asks.

It should be noted that masturbation for women is a socially frowned issue.

Indian women go through double oppression:

The first, that that forces them to a gender role in which they are expected to be housewives, setting aside their work goals.

The second is an obsession related to Western colonialism. White skin that entails discrimination against native women versus foreigners.

The Third Sex

Also, since the English colonization, repression against homosexuals was strengthened. Although the ancient Hindu philosophy admitted the existence of a “third sex”, in the middle of the feminine and masculine, called “hijra”, today the situation is horrifying. In 2013 t sex between homosexuals was deemed illegal against a “natural order”. It has a 10 years prison sentence.

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7 thoughts on “Khajuraho: The Sex Temples & the Irony of India”

Totally agree, sexual act must be a agreement between the man and the woman. No point to assault a woman if she does not want or say so…. long time unfortunately before things like that will be normal in everydays life

sex is natural, but when you see it as taboo, and you can’t find your answers, you never can control yourself . you know , you cant close your hand when it’s closed. not only indian , all people should know women are not tools for their joys, and sex is different from rape somebody.

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Travelling is about experiences: The discovery, the smells, the pictures…. And what a better way to travel than to meet local friends along the way and go beyond what you see in travel guides? Follow me to these incredible destinations and learn the story behind each location!